Blaine Eckberg

Blaine is a Training Specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC). He has worked in training, visitor services, communications, youth programming, outdoor recreation, and natural resources for the USFWS for almost 20 years, 13 of those years at NCTC. His primary focus at NCTC is designing and delivering visitor services, maintenance professional and communications training and support materials.

He is an experienced park ranger, environmental educator and naturalist, leading outdoor trips and studying the wildlife and flora of the mid-Atlantic piedmont forests and southeast swamp/pineland forests. He also has a background in wildland firefighting. Blaine started his USFWS career as a Park Ranger at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia. Before that he worked for 8 years as a park ranger and biological science technician for the National Park Service at Rock Creek Park and the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Blaine has a B.S. in Secondary Education from the University of Maryland and certificates in Natural History Field Studies and Environmental Law and Policy from the USDA Graduate School. He is also a Certified Interpretive Guide and a Certified Instructional Technologist. 

Previous pursuits in the conservation and outdoor recreation field include working as a sea kayak guide, camp counselor, outdoor gear salesman, and a volunteer search and rescue specialist. He enjoys being outdoors hiking, biking, kayaking, traveling and observing nature.